Talk:Nippo Jisho

Article (and book) title

I'm puzzled by the title of the article. That Dictionary is capitalized suggests it's the title of the book, rather than a description of it. But has it appeared in English translation? I doubt it. Indeed, it's almost unimaginable. If that's so, the English title is newly invented; why choose this for the article title?

In "Vocabvlario da Lingoa de Iapam" within the article, the old v-form graph of the grapheme "u" seems to have been taken as the grapheme "v". I tentatively suggest "Vocabulario da Lingoa de Iapam" as the title of the book and of the article about it. (Tentatively, because offhand I don't know about the "I"/"J" distinction in Portuguese of that time, or indeed about diacritics, etc.) -- Hoary 11:07, 2005 Jun 10 (UTC)

Changing the article title to put the "d" in lowercase sounds reasonable. Fg2 13:24, Jun 10, 2005 (UTC)

There is no English translation. The book has a Japanese title, "Nippo jisho" (日葡辞書）which simply means "Japanese-Portuguese Dictionary," and a Portuguese title, "VOCABVLARIO DA LINGOA DE IAPAM com adeclaração em Portugues, feito por ALGUNS PADRES, E IR.mãos companhia DE IESV" (the use of CAPS mimics the use of caps on the original printed versions) which means, "Vocabulary of the language of Japan with definitions in Portuguese, done by certain fathers and brothers of the of the Company of Jesus. Jb05-rsh 22:43, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

Actually I suggest this article be moved to a site named "Nippo jisho" which is shorter, and a more common name for the book used by people who are studying Japanese. Searches for "Japanese-Portuguese Dictionary of 1603" or for "VOCABVLARIO DA LINGOA DE IAPAM" should be directed to "Nippo jisho" Jb05-rsh 22:47, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

It's very hard to see why an English name like this should be redirected to a Japanese name. Are you going to redirect everything to a Japanese name? For example do you want to rename "English language" to "Eigo" because that is the name used in Japan? English Wikipedia is an English language encyclopedia, and the dictionary was originally published under a Portuguese title, so using the Japanese title is difficult to justify. Certainly the above point about "Dictionary" is valid, it should say "dictionary". --DannyWilde 23:24, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

Let me change the tact of my argument; copies of the book that exist in libraries in the United States, inlcuding the Library of Congress, are listed as "Nippo jisho". If anyone wants to find the book it is necessary to know the title by which it is listed in libraries. How about references to the book which contain a link to the article mention BOTH titles? Afterall, it has two titles, and the Japanese is the title used for listings in library catalogs, and the Portuguese is the title of the printed object. Would you agree to that? Jb05-rsh 23:35, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

The following is a copy of private discussion about the article title

Considering the dictionary was published under the Portuguese title, it doesn't make sense to move it to the Japanese name. If it was going to be moved anywhere, the Portuguese name was the obvious candidate. --DannyWilde 23:09, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

The Library of Congress and most other libraries in the USA use the Japanese title. Assuming anyone actually wanted to find a copy of the book, one would NOT find it by searching for the Portuguese title. Jb05-rsh 23:12, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

I do not mind you mind you changing the links in articles to "Vocabulario de Lingoa de Iapam." However, since anyone who would want to find the book needs to know the Japanese title, how about references to the book which contain a link to the article mention BOTH titles? Afterall, it has both titles, and the Japanese is the title used for listings in library catalogs, and the Portuguese is the title of the printed object. Would you agree to that? Jb05-rsh 23:31, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

Thank you for your insight into this. If this is the recognized name in English, then it is certainly OK to change the article into that title. I thought that you were changing it into that title because it represented the Japanese, rather than the English, name, but clearly you know more about the correct title in English than I do. Excuse me for raising this objection. Let's use "Nippo jisho" for the title. --DannyWilde 23:38, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

Sorry, I tried to move it back, but I couldn't move over the redirect page. To move it to "Nippo jisho" you'll need to ask an admin. In the meantime, I have moved it to "Nippo Jisho" with a capital J. --DannyWilde 23:48, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

I suppose that is OK. Wikipedia is case sensitive so if both titles exist, one will redirect to the other. On a certain note the Libray of Congress guidlines on Japanese titles state that proper nouns like "Nippo" which means "Japan and Portugal" should be capitalized, but that nouns like "jisho" which means Dictionary should be uncapitalized. But I am not picky, as long as people can find the article and the book. Jb05-rsh 00:06, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

No, Wikipedia does not do that automatically. The redirect from Nippo jisho to Nippo Jisho was one I made manually. If you think that "Nippo jisho" is the correct name, we'll have to ask an admin to move it, because the move function won't allow it. By the way, let's copy this discussion onto the talk page of Nippo Jisho, so people can see the reason for the move of the page name. --DannyWilde 00:32, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

Spelling

We should use the original spelling. I guess the book has xi instead of shi and the like.

Since the whole issue of spelling was so complicated, I decided to add more examples which clearly distinguished the difference between the jisho's spelling and modern romanization. that both systems are used togethor, and you know which is from the jisho and which is modern. That way I think readers get the idea of how the differences in spelling may have actually reflected differences in pronunciation, without making any hard claims that we can't immediately back up. Jb05-rsh 19:42, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

Pronunciation

We read: "...the pronunciations nihon (which would have been pronounced nifon)...."

Unfortunately I know next to nothing about the past pronunciation of Japanese. I do know something of how it's pronounced now. If I didn't even know that, and were a monoglot anglophone, I'd infer that this was the labiodental [f] (as in English). But since I do know a little bit more, I guess it's bilabial [Φ] instead. Well, I dunno -- what is it? For explaining pronunciation, I suggest IPA (with explanations where appropriate) rather than ghastly modified (extended, etc.) Hepburn. -- Hoary 10:16, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

Shimo

Does "shimo" mean "Kyushu"? I'd be surprised, but willing to believe it given appropriate references. I always thought that "kami" meant "Kyoto" (or in a broader sense "Kansai") and "shimo" meant the rest of the country, including not only Kyushu but also Kanto, Hokuriku, Chugoku, Shikoku and so forth. If I'm wrong about this, I'd like to know more. Fg2 07:59, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Technically, it does not specify Kyūshū. There are four entries for "ximo". The one relavent here says (personal translation) "lower portion; also, those islands. in other words, the lower islands". The original text is "estas ilhas". This entry is thought to reflect upon the fact that the text was edited in Nagasaki. For other references, Daijirin (大辞林) has (personal translation) "(3.2) As opposed to the Kinki region, the western lands Chūgoku, Shikoku, and Kyūshū", and Kōjien (広辞苑) has "(7) Land away from the capital; especially Kyūshū, Chūgoku, and Shikoku. Country". I would not include Hokuriku or Kantō in the meaning. Bendono 07:34, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Does it contain Kanji or Kana?

I presume the original copies of the book had been printed (on a European printing press), not written. Which probably means they didn't contain any Kanji or Kana, only Romanizations (unless the Jesuits had equipment+time+skill to make their own types, which I doubt). Is that assumption correct? If so, it deserves being mentioned in the article. Catskineater (talk) 18:31, 3 May 2010 (UTC)